Government Helps French--a Lot

Funding For Generous Benefits Key To Labor Troubles

December 22, 1995|By New York Times News Service.

PARIS — When Nadine Tweig discovered she was expecting four years ago, she filed a form and began to collect $150 a month starting in her fourth month of pregnancy. Mothers in France regardless of economic or marital status receive such a subsidy.

Two years ago, when Tweig became pregnant again, the subsidy doubled and will continue until her two boys reach 18. Throughout the pregnancies all of Tweig's medical needs, checkups and medication were free--both of cost and of burdensome paperwork or delays at a government-funded clinic a few doors away in her upper-middle-class neighborhood in Paris.

Last year Tweig's companion, Alfred, a photographer, was seriously wounded covering the conflict in Chechnya. He was flown to France and spent nearly two months in a specialized war wounds hospital in Paris. He incurred no expenses and then recuperated at home for another two months with full pay guaranteed by the state.

Tweig went to the Office of Family Allocations in her neighborhood to explain she needed some help around the house to cope with her convalescing companion, her job as a free-lance writer and her children. After an hourlong interview she was assigned a housekeeper for a few weeks. She paid about $3 an hour and the social security fund picked up the remaining $7 per hour.

"This is the foundation of our Republican system. It goes back to the French revolution. Equality and fraternity are not mere slogans here," Tweig said. Indeed, the message that people matter was at the heart of a three-week strike by public workers and the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in every major city in France.

The strike, the country's most serious labor unrest in a decade, was called to protest Premier Alain Juppe's proposal to slash medical, social welfare and benefit payments in an effort to plug a widening budget deficit. The government and most economists say the very economic strength that has permitted France's generous benefits is in serious jeopardy. But the attitude of citizens like Tweig, multiplied millions of times over, shows why France appears headed for more confrontation over spending policies.

"I think most French people want France's values to be decided by this spirit, not by cold, remote, economic summits that speak of deficits and competition," Tweig said. "That was the message of the strikes. People are worried the government is retreating with its austerity plans and talk of balanced budgets. They told it to find another way."

Larger, poorer families can and do benefit from an amazing array of government-financed benefits that include paid yearly holidays and transportation to a sea or mountain resort. The government pays for moving expenses, care at home for older people, subsidized apartments, and even dishwashers and washing machines for those who cannot afford them and have large families.

In the Paris region, where people are encouraged to use mass transit, employers are required to pick up half the commuting cost for their employees. Apartment building owners cannot evict tenants who are unable to pay the rent during winter months and are granted tax breaks to alleviate the financial burden until warmer weather.

Welfare includes issues like the right of each office employee to have a window from where the person can see "either sunset or sunrise." Five weeks vacation is mandatory. In so-called high-stress jobs, like medical professions or journalism, vacations extend to nine weeks and are complemented by tax breaks.

Throughout France, citizens are entitled by law to free schooling through a university education. From day care through high school, subsidized meals are included. Together these benefits and many others constitute a form of subsidy that, in the end, allows people of limited income to stretch their lifestyle beyond their means.

Tweig says the safety net has allowed her considerable peace of mind. More important, she believes it fulfills an essential social purpose.

One of the most memorable comments on the upheaval cited by many here, was made by a middle-aged railroad worker whose income is about $1,400 a month. He stared into the camera and declared that what drove him to revolt was that "you can't go the theater anymore."

Numa Murard, a sociology professor, said, "This worker's comment captured a wonderful moment in my opinion because it showed how, through decades of social engagement, we have created a sophisticated people to a point that a simple worker believes it is his right -- indeed his human right -- to go to the theater and to eat at a decent restaurant on Sunday."

"In some other countries these are considered privileges deserved by only a few," she said.